"La donna sola"

"I wish I had a river I could skate away on.." -Joni Mitchell

Lately my blogs have been a little more optimistic, but I would not be honest with myself or my followers if I weren't to admit that every once in awhile, I have a bad day. I get lonely. I get tired of being strong. Days when hope seems like a fairytale and there's no amount of gin and tonic to help fill the bottomless void that is being single. Like all other relationships, working on your relationship with yourself is just as much work if not more. There is no one else to think about your needs, bring you chocolate ice cream when you had a bad day at work, brighten your bedside table with white cala lillies, or send you a sweet text in the middle of the day to let you know they're thinking about you. Deep down I know that this is what I need and that like a infant crying itself to sleep and learning to self soothe, I can learn to heal myself. I can learn to be at rest in my solitude. In her book, "On My Own," Florence Falk says, "Deep in our hearts we probably understand that aloneness is a natural part of life, but existential aloneness, the awareness that within us is a core self that no other human being, no matter how intimate, can ever touch, can be unsettling."

I also like the way that Elizabeth Cady Staton sums it up so perfectly: "Our inner being which we call ourself, no eye nor touch of man or angel has ever pierced."

We long to be truly seen for who and what we are, and I would like to think that I am selfless enough to be able to look into another man's soul and know him in the way that I would like to be understood. But I can't say that I am any more of an expert at that than anyone else. I carry my own baggage and battle wounds and most days when I look in the mirror, I see the eyes of a refugee gazing back at me. Beaten, bruised, and broken. Unlovable and uncherished.

But there is a time to fight for love and there is a time to listen to your heart's pleading to let go....la donna solo is Italian for "a woman alone." Although I've never been big on tattoos, I've always thought that I would get one when I found something that truly meant something to me and that I would want to have permanently sewn into my skin. When I look down at my body, I want to be able to see that these words are a part of me and that I am a part of them. No matter what my relationship status, marital status, life status, at the core I will always be a woman alone. And somehow I think I've always known that....